That's not how ports work, but nice try. I recommend googling for an understanding of TCP, UDP, firewalls, etc. Previous comments about how the Windows firewall exists to protect the rest of the internet are fairly accurate. The default settings of the firewall are designed to prevent the spread of fairly dumb worms and other such malware. If the OS wasn't security Swiss cheese to begin with, this default setting wouldn't be necessary. Yes, it is annoying, but it also happens to be a good idea. Handling that annoyance is part of your personal responsibility to everyone else. Everyone has a rough idea about Windows having bad security problems, so they need to know that if they are going to use Windows, they are responsible for what their Windows installation is doing.
Not removable. I don't care if you can remove them, what I do care about is time. If you have to fix a bunch of people every day, clawing around at the core system trying to find a hidden rootkit and remove all traces of it while not breaking anything worse than it already is will most likely take you far more time than backing up some data and doing a full reinstall.
Basically, if you're using Internet Explorer and have not got a rootkit yet, you are either using good browsing practices or you do have one and won't admit it. I support 10,000+ students at a university, and we're doing at least one reinstall a day due to rootkit infection. These are mainly young women who are just using the internet like all their peers do; i.e., not looking at porn or searching for warez or cracks.
The thing is that, for the most part, RIM got the push email right with the BlackBerry. It's so simple and easy that I have to give them respect. Sure, the interface is bland, and it takes some learning, but once you learn it, you realize it is very efficient and well designed. Sure, a touch screen is nice sometimes, but eliminating that cuts out the difficulty of trying to accurately tap on tiny buttons while in various environments. Each device has a suitable purpose. A BlackBerry is pretty much the best messaging device on the market. To quote some sleezy TV lawyer, "That's all I do, and I do it well." Don't criticize RIM's strategy, because it obviously works. Why should they try to enter an already crowded market? Maybe adding video support would be a smart move, but what else really needs to change? I know that companies always have to change their products just to keep up with the demands that everything be new all the time, but there's no reason to fundamentally change something that works so well, I think.
If you want porn in your hand, buy something from Microsoft. They'll have your multimedia needs covered. If you just need email, get the BlackBerry.
Thank you for saying this. I'm playing around with a 7130e right now, and I would consider an average of 640 kilobits/second to be pretty damn good. EVDO (EVolution, Data Only) is definitely 3G. EVDV is the next step, but as far as a device primarily used for data goes, having 3G voice does not much matter to me.
Not to split hairs here, but as far as I can tell, the "word" 3G is about as real as "AJAX" or "broadband" when it actually comes down to meaning something. Mainly it is an idea, not an actual spec. We have come to accept 3G, at least in the US, as meaning really fast data on a cell phone. Am I wrong in thinking that?
Hahaha. That is so right-on. And to think I actually saw someone using a floppy just last week. I wanted to warn them, but I figured they would have to learn the hard way.
I think the real demand for flash-cache hard drives should be in the area of data loss prevention. Anyone who has any doubts about the fact that laptop hard drives are still way too fragile for the job needs to work at a help desk for a week. Any way to keep those drives spun down as much as possible should be seen as a good idea, since speed does not really matter much if you lose your data and/or need a new drive every three months simply because you like to move your laptop while it is running.
I know this just adds another point of failure to the mix with the addition of flash memory. However, with the apparent improvements in the quality of flash memory, I would expect one of these drives to outlast a current laptop drive by at least 50%. (Note: this is just idle speculation, but I don't know of any solid real-world statistics on laptop hard drive lifespan. I'm guessing laptop makers don't want us to know, either.)
I think that the point of drivers is, therefore, valid. There needs to be some sort of intelligence behind this system to allow frequently needed files to be held in cache in order for this to work effectively. Sure, you could build a drive that could try this on its own, but odds are you would totally throw out any performance or power advantage by doing so.
Calling this a "me-too" is suggesting that Sprint and Nextel would merge because the cool kids are doing it. Yea, it looks like they're just jumping on the bandwagon, but this is big business not teenagers we're talking about. Because of the way that U.S. wireless carriers are set up, smaller companies seem to be losing relevance on a daily basis. Some expert said it was about survival of the largest, not survival of the fittest. This is going to make three large wireless companies that are fairly close in size. Perhaps this will in some way lead to better values for consumers because the playing field will be somewhat leveled. I'm not very convinced that will happen though. It seems that Verizon will continue to be for those who simply want a basic cell phone that works most places (and are willing to pay an extra $10 a month for the same plan as other providers). Cingular is for those who want cooler phones, and cheaper plans. Sprint-Nextel will cover business and whatever's left.
I would like to see numbers on who Nextel's customers really are. I know this is wildly inaccurate, but at my school Nextel phones are quite popular. Probably at least 20% of cell phone carrying students have Nextel. With boost bringing Nextel to the pre-pay customer base, I think they may find even more appeal with a younger audience. I think that if Sprint-Nextel priced all their plans under the competition and slashed phone prices a bit more they could see serious gains in customer base. I'm not even a business major, but it seems obvious and doable to me.
Totally right. That comment by Michael was not helpful at all, as it is essentially paranoia. I agree that we have to be very skeptical of who we trust, especially as the individual can easily be ripped off or otherwise abused. Besides potential abuses, the Steam system is about as close to ideal as possible for any user with a fast internet connection. It's really nice to hop on a computer in a lab at school or at work when you have downtime and be up and playing a game with no CD in a few minutes. As far as I know, Valve is OK with that because even if I leave the game installed on many computers, I can only use one copy at a time.
I could have griped to Valve earlier when Steam first came out and I couldn't get on with the CD key that I legally owned, but then I reminded myself that I had given that key out in the past and it was probably because of that lapse in judgment that I could no longer take advantage of it.
The bottom line is Valve is not out to screw people. They have a good system, one that I hope will go well beyond games. If they make a mistake, they'll fix it for you. I watched my roommate coax a CD key out of a Valve customer service rep last year for absolutely nothing. All he had to say was that he had a legit copy of the game and still couldn't get on. Maybe they're tougher now, but who cares? And who bought Half-Life 2 in a store anyway?
Good point... as this stuff gets smarter, we get dumber. Why do machines that are inherently dangerous need to continue to get "safer?" They can never be safe enough to prevent all casaulties, but if the human operators took a greater interest in being safe it could be done. This is just like the people in the Chicago area whining about how unsafe the Metra commuter trains are because some idiots weren't paying attention and got hit. Of course there is an element of danger, but you have been sufficiently warned and if you can't handle it you need to be off the road. Think about false alarms and flashing lights in cars. Those won't cause any more accidents, will they? I mean what dozing off or drunk driver could possibly misinterpret such indicators? Think.
Sony has already released at least one MiniDV camera that can read mail. The camera includes Bluetooth as well as a stylus to use with the touch screen.
Yes we are talking about a lot of megapixels with this camera, but it is intended for professional use. Additionally, those 16.7 megapixels are almost excessive given the fact that it is still only a 35mm CMOS.
Oh and you won't be sending images to the PowerBook in your backpack because it will be sleeping if it's closed. (BTW you would have to be an IDIOT to leave your laptop fully powered up in a closed backpack as it will probably overheat and/or burn out and die faster)
I'd be willing to bet that it is the monitor. Maybe it's just a fluke, or maybe it's just a bad model. Dell isn't exactly known for excellent quality, regardless of who makes the underlying components. I've found especially with the rush to the LCD market that many displays do not perform as specified, especially those that are coupled with a TV tuner. It is basically shocking how shoddy some of this stuff is, and it's even more shocking that we are paying for it and not complaining. Of course, you can also get lucky like I did and get a brand-new $300 17" LCD that performs on par with Apple's 17". Unfortunately, that deal has come and gone.
The way you put it we are clearly better for having the internet. But you assume that all of these things are necessary. I suppose it depends on how you view things, but I am not so sure they are necessary. I still have yet to find a personal philosophy that addresses all these issues, but either way I'm not sure that this is black and white, either the internet sucks or rocks. It's pretty clear that there is more to it than that and simply because there seem to be a lot of benefits doesn't mean it's a good thing.
I guess the question is, then, why do we go back? Isn't this essentially like a drug? We know we're better off without it, but it has some actual benefits and it "feels so good."
I have been doing a lot of thinking about this recently, and I'm guessing I've probably gone somewhat overboard. I have two computers, a Nextel phone, a Cingular phone, a Sidekick, and a cable modem. Recently, when a friend had to send in her laptop to the bloodsuckers at Best Buy for repair, I decided that it would be no big deal for me to loan her my PowerBook for the three weeks she would be without her computer. Two weeks in and I'm still comfortable with the proposition. Frankly, if my job didn't require a computer, and if it didn't make my life as a computer science student much easier, I think I would just give up on all this.
Presently I'm having a real struggle with being in college (and being so connected) period. I spent the summer working hard with a tree service company. It was a great workout and I expanded my mind in new ways. I have fully learned that simply because something is physically intense does not mean it's for morons. Nevertheless, I am being told I would be "settling for mediocrity" if I dropped out of school and did that sort of work full time. Well the thing is, I did a little math and realized that I don't need to make $100,000 a year to live the way I want to. In fact, the $14/hour tree job seems perfect.
The thing that gets me the most upset about all this is I have recently concluded that I am absolutely surrounded by mediocrity every day at school. I have a professor who is an MIT grad who doesn't even know the difference between ethernet and PS/2 connections. The people I work with on campus spend more time doing CYA work than anything real (that's cover your ass, if you haven't experienced that before). The campus's security policies and practices are half-assed and inconsistent. So are all the construction efforts. Most students are nothing but drunken robots who spend their nights at the same shitty bar(s), and their days doing nothing but mechanically studying and spewing worthless facts. Most professors rely on rote recitation teaching methods. There really is no effort being put forth by so many people here, yet when I clearly demonstrated superior knowledge in an Italian course I received a failing grade due to poor attendance and was not allowed to appeal that decision.
Sound like I'm just ranting about school, specifically my school? I'm not. Many, if not all colleges have many or all of these problems. The fact is that the Internet has turned me into an impatient bastard. Yes, it does make a few things easier, but if school was actually worthwhile I wouldn't mind going down to the surprisingly good library here and doing some old-fashioned research. Right now there is no incentive to do so.
What are the best things that have come out of the Internet anyway? I would probably say that through its increased communication, we have been given the open source movement. While on the surface this is a great idea, it has serious problems also. What about the people whose lives are taken over by their projects simply because they spend "a little time on it after work?" I may be talking out of my ass here, but I am willing to bet that the current open source development model leads to burnout. And so does anything that is based on the Internet and the assumption that it automatically makes things faster, better, smarter, and easier, because it does not. The Internet is a tool, and can be a difficult one to use appropriately. Our overdependence on it is going to continually get worse before a solution is found. But please, go on, continue living a connected life. I probably will. What it really comes down to is I don't have the balls to get out of this shitty lifestyle and move on to something I'd really rather do, and I think this is true of a really large portion of the people who spend a lot of time on the Internet.
Anyone who sells any computer with less than 256MB of RAM should be killed, and anyone who sells a computer with less than 512MB of RAM should be punished.
It all comes down to whether you appreciate a clean, uncluttered interface, or if you want anything but simplicity. Google has pulled it off the best. Ask Jeeves is currently basically a lame ripoff of the Google interface, and A9 is fairly clean but there is still too much going on for my tastes. Any other major search engine has way, way too much going on. And regardless of how amazingly fast A9 works, I am certain that plain old Google will continue to be the cleanest, fastest, and most efficient search engine. My only gripe is that searching on Google is still far from intelligent.
You are missing my point. If you set up a WAP that you don't even really need to actually get online, and this blocks other students from getting online, and you understand this, then you are behaving in an immoral fashion as you are placing the good of one over the good of many. I am not talking about laws or the FCC here. I also don't think that this discussion is going to go anywhere. I think we probably can both agree that the best thing to happen here is for the university to make their wireless network more intelligent and let students do whatever they want (legally) with their own WAPs.
Additionally, even if the university has no right to actually enforce this policy, you can see that there is a certain moral obligation already. I am not going to get into the morality of network use, but a good analogy is parking your car at the entrance to a parking lot, so that no one else can get in. Perhaps in this case the officials have their hands tied and cannot move you, however you have to understand how wrong it is to deny other people's use of something they have been granted a right to simply because you like to do things your way. Yes, this is a sticky issue, yes the university needs to do more than change policy to fix things, but in the mean time students need to bring down those WAPs to be fair.
I replied to the previous article without a full understanding of the issues, but now that I know a whole lot more I have to comment again. If this housing is owned by the university, then the students are subject to the university because first of all, they are students, and second, the university is their landlord. I suspect that the laws differ from place to place regarding what additional regulations the university can enforce, but I am willing to believe that they are within their rights to deny students the ability to use WAPs in their apartments. I agree that it is a lousy way to fix the problem, and there are obviously other issues to address, but you have to understand that one student's desire to have their own wireless network does not give him/her a right to deny other students their access to the university network.
The university I attend/work for is having problems right now with one of its apartment buildings that receives its connection to the university via 802.11 wireless (using special unidirectional antennas). We have determined that at least part of the problem has to do with the current preponderance of WAPs in the building. Admittedly, this case is quite different in some respects, as the students who set up WAPs may effectively be denying themselves internet access. Our conclusion is either the students need to stop using WAPs in their apartments or we need to change our equipment. We took the latter approach, as it needed to be upgraded anyway.
I don't see why the university we are discussing didn't implement an 802.11a network, thus eliminating most problems. Provide the necessary cards to the students, for free or discount. Yes, you can complain that most students that already have wireless capable machines don't have a-cards, but tough shit. If the sole means of providing the university network to some students is via wireless, then you need to do what it takes to make that wireless work. This includes spending some extra money on higher-end equipment that isn't subject to interference from consumer WAPs and cordless phones, among other things. Either that, or you have to come down and enforce heavy-handed policy. While I don't condone that option, I personally believe they are well within their rights to enforce it.
I also believe that if I found out that my WAP was causing other students to not be able to access the internet at all, I would be obligated on many levels to disable my WAP. I don't see how this could be any more obvious.
What I'm mainly getting at is I hope that this can be a nail in the coffin of proprietary, monolithic data management systems. Frankly, I do not know all that is required with setting up such systems, but if I was in the position to make a decision about it and be responsible for critical data for, say, students at a large university, the last place I would look would be Oracle/PeopleSoft. I have worked with both before, and I am now a client user for both and frankly they suck. I don't know if the trouble lies more on Oracle/PeopleSoft's end of things, or if it just happens to be that every implementation I have ever seen has sucked on its own. Either way, I think that these companies will start to lose significant market share as Windows server products also lose market share, and I think that we should all see that as a good thing.
Anything that kills PeopleSoft is a good thing. I don't care how many people use it or how well it may work for some people, it is the Windows of its market (i.e. poorly made, difficult to support, and unreliable as hell, especially when not configured perfectly).
This has nothing to do with students' rights. No one has a legal right to use however they wish something that does not belong to them. Sure, they may have a right to use a wireless access point in their dorm room, however they do not have a right to connect that to the network without permission. They perhaps may have given up even the right to possess such a device in their room by signing a housing contract, however, so we shouldn't be crying foul. Basically, if you live on a college campus (i.e. property owned by the school) you are completely subject to their rules and regulations.
What exactly is an "extention?" Do you mean "extension?" If you did, why not go ahead and publicly make that correction, because a quick search of the comments for this post reveals that a handful of people are using your poor spelling. Don't tell me it's British either, because it isn't. There is only one way to spell the word in the English language.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not how ports work, but nice try. I recommend googling for an understanding of TCP, UDP, firewalls, etc. Previous comments about how the Windows firewall exists to protect the rest of the internet are fairly accurate. The default settings of the firewall are designed to prevent the spread of fairly dumb worms and other such malware. If the OS wasn't security Swiss cheese to begin with, this default setting wouldn't be necessary. Yes, it is annoying, but it also happens to be a good idea. Handling that annoyance is part of your personal responsibility to everyone else. Everyone has a rough idea about Windows having bad security problems, so they need to know that if they are going to use Windows, they are responsible for what their Windows installation is doing.
Here it is as an actual link, which I was too lazy to do the first time around:
http://news.com.com/2061-10793_3-6059694.html
http://news.com.com/2061-10793_3-605969 4.html
Not removable. I don't care if you can remove them, what I do care about is time. If you have to fix a bunch of people every day, clawing around at the core system trying to find a hidden rootkit and remove all traces of it while not breaking anything worse than it already is will most likely take you far more time than backing up some data and doing a full reinstall.
Basically, if you're using Internet Explorer and have not got a rootkit yet, you are either using good browsing practices or you do have one and won't admit it. I support 10,000+ students at a university, and we're doing at least one reinstall a day due to rootkit infection. These are mainly young women who are just using the internet like all their peers do; i.e., not looking at porn or searching for warez or cracks.
If you want porn in your hand, buy something from Microsoft. They'll have your multimedia needs covered. If you just need email, get the BlackBerry.
Not to split hairs here, but as far as I can tell, the "word" 3G is about as real as "AJAX" or "broadband" when it actually comes down to meaning something. Mainly it is an idea, not an actual spec. We have come to accept 3G, at least in the US, as meaning really fast data on a cell phone. Am I wrong in thinking that?
Hahaha. That is so right-on. And to think I actually saw someone using a floppy just last week. I wanted to warn them, but I figured they would have to learn the hard way.
I know this just adds another point of failure to the mix with the addition of flash memory. However, with the apparent improvements in the quality of flash memory, I would expect one of these drives to outlast a current laptop drive by at least 50%. (Note: this is just idle speculation, but I don't know of any solid real-world statistics on laptop hard drive lifespan. I'm guessing laptop makers don't want us to know, either.)
I think that the point of drivers is, therefore, valid. There needs to be some sort of intelligence behind this system to allow frequently needed files to be held in cache in order for this to work effectively. Sure, you could build a drive that could try this on its own, but odds are you would totally throw out any performance or power advantage by doing so.
I would like to see numbers on who Nextel's customers really are. I know this is wildly inaccurate, but at my school Nextel phones are quite popular. Probably at least 20% of cell phone carrying students have Nextel. With boost bringing Nextel to the pre-pay customer base, I think they may find even more appeal with a younger audience. I think that if Sprint-Nextel priced all their plans under the competition and slashed phone prices a bit more they could see serious gains in customer base. I'm not even a business major, but it seems obvious and doable to me.
I could have griped to Valve earlier when Steam first came out and I couldn't get on with the CD key that I legally owned, but then I reminded myself that I had given that key out in the past and it was probably because of that lapse in judgment that I could no longer take advantage of it.
The bottom line is Valve is not out to screw people. They have a good system, one that I hope will go well beyond games. If they make a mistake, they'll fix it for you. I watched my roommate coax a CD key out of a Valve customer service rep last year for absolutely nothing. All he had to say was that he had a legit copy of the game and still couldn't get on. Maybe they're tougher now, but who cares? And who bought Half-Life 2 in a store anyway?
Good point... as this stuff gets smarter, we get dumber. Why do machines that are inherently dangerous need to continue to get "safer?" They can never be safe enough to prevent all casaulties, but if the human operators took a greater interest in being safe it could be done. This is just like the people in the Chicago area whining about how unsafe the Metra commuter trains are because some idiots weren't paying attention and got hit. Of course there is an element of danger, but you have been sufficiently warned and if you can't handle it you need to be off the road. Think about false alarms and flashing lights in cars. Those won't cause any more accidents, will they? I mean what dozing off or drunk driver could possibly misinterpret such indicators? Think.
Yes we are talking about a lot of megapixels with this camera, but it is intended for professional use. Additionally, those 16.7 megapixels are almost excessive given the fact that it is still only a 35mm CMOS.
Oh and you won't be sending images to the PowerBook in your backpack because it will be sleeping if it's closed. (BTW you would have to be an IDIOT to leave your laptop fully powered up in a closed backpack as it will probably overheat and/or burn out and die faster)
I'd be willing to bet that it is the monitor. Maybe it's just a fluke, or maybe it's just a bad model. Dell isn't exactly known for excellent quality, regardless of who makes the underlying components. I've found especially with the rush to the LCD market that many displays do not perform as specified, especially those that are coupled with a TV tuner. It is basically shocking how shoddy some of this stuff is, and it's even more shocking that we are paying for it and not complaining. Of course, you can also get lucky like I did and get a brand-new $300 17" LCD that performs on par with Apple's 17". Unfortunately, that deal has come and gone.
The way you put it we are clearly better for having the internet. But you assume that all of these things are necessary. I suppose it depends on how you view things, but I am not so sure they are necessary. I still have yet to find a personal philosophy that addresses all these issues, but either way I'm not sure that this is black and white, either the internet sucks or rocks. It's pretty clear that there is more to it than that and simply because there seem to be a lot of benefits doesn't mean it's a good thing.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about this recently, and I'm guessing I've probably gone somewhat overboard. I have two computers, a Nextel phone, a Cingular phone, a Sidekick, and a cable modem. Recently, when a friend had to send in her laptop to the bloodsuckers at Best Buy for repair, I decided that it would be no big deal for me to loan her my PowerBook for the three weeks she would be without her computer. Two weeks in and I'm still comfortable with the proposition. Frankly, if my job didn't require a computer, and if it didn't make my life as a computer science student much easier, I think I would just give up on all this.
Presently I'm having a real struggle with being in college (and being so connected) period. I spent the summer working hard with a tree service company. It was a great workout and I expanded my mind in new ways. I have fully learned that simply because something is physically intense does not mean it's for morons. Nevertheless, I am being told I would be "settling for mediocrity" if I dropped out of school and did that sort of work full time. Well the thing is, I did a little math and realized that I don't need to make $100,000 a year to live the way I want to. In fact, the $14/hour tree job seems perfect.
The thing that gets me the most upset about all this is I have recently concluded that I am absolutely surrounded by mediocrity every day at school. I have a professor who is an MIT grad who doesn't even know the difference between ethernet and PS/2 connections. The people I work with on campus spend more time doing CYA work than anything real (that's cover your ass, if you haven't experienced that before). The campus's security policies and practices are half-assed and inconsistent. So are all the construction efforts. Most students are nothing but drunken robots who spend their nights at the same shitty bar(s), and their days doing nothing but mechanically studying and spewing worthless facts. Most professors rely on rote recitation teaching methods. There really is no effort being put forth by so many people here, yet when I clearly demonstrated superior knowledge in an Italian course I received a failing grade due to poor attendance and was not allowed to appeal that decision.
Sound like I'm just ranting about school, specifically my school? I'm not. Many, if not all colleges have many or all of these problems. The fact is that the Internet has turned me into an impatient bastard. Yes, it does make a few things easier, but if school was actually worthwhile I wouldn't mind going down to the surprisingly good library here and doing some old-fashioned research. Right now there is no incentive to do so.
What are the best things that have come out of the Internet anyway? I would probably say that through its increased communication, we have been given the open source movement. While on the surface this is a great idea, it has serious problems also. What about the people whose lives are taken over by their projects simply because they spend "a little time on it after work?" I may be talking out of my ass here, but I am willing to bet that the current open source development model leads to burnout. And so does anything that is based on the Internet and the assumption that it automatically makes things faster, better, smarter, and easier, because it does not. The Internet is a tool, and can be a difficult one to use appropriately. Our overdependence on it is going to continually get worse before a solution is found. But please, go on, continue living a connected life. I probably will. What it really comes down to is I don't have the balls to get out of this shitty lifestyle and move on to something I'd really rather do, and I think this is true of a really large portion of the people who spend a lot of time on the Internet.
Anyone who sells any computer with less than 256MB of RAM should be killed, and anyone who sells a computer with less than 512MB of RAM should be punished.
It all comes down to whether you appreciate a clean, uncluttered interface, or if you want anything but simplicity. Google has pulled it off the best. Ask Jeeves is currently basically a lame ripoff of the Google interface, and A9 is fairly clean but there is still too much going on for my tastes. Any other major search engine has way, way too much going on. And regardless of how amazingly fast A9 works, I am certain that plain old Google will continue to be the cleanest, fastest, and most efficient search engine. My only gripe is that searching on Google is still far from intelligent.
You are missing my point. If you set up a WAP that you don't even really need to actually get online, and this blocks other students from getting online, and you understand this, then you are behaving in an immoral fashion as you are placing the good of one over the good of many. I am not talking about laws or the FCC here. I also don't think that this discussion is going to go anywhere. I think we probably can both agree that the best thing to happen here is for the university to make their wireless network more intelligent and let students do whatever they want (legally) with their own WAPs.
Additionally, even if the university has no right to actually enforce this policy, you can see that there is a certain moral obligation already. I am not going to get into the morality of network use, but a good analogy is parking your car at the entrance to a parking lot, so that no one else can get in. Perhaps in this case the officials have their hands tied and cannot move you, however you have to understand how wrong it is to deny other people's use of something they have been granted a right to simply because you like to do things your way. Yes, this is a sticky issue, yes the university needs to do more than change policy to fix things, but in the mean time students need to bring down those WAPs to be fair.
In many cases the university is allowed additional rights because students waive rights by signing contracts (i.e. a housing contract).
The university I attend/work for is having problems right now with one of its apartment buildings that receives its connection to the university via 802.11 wireless (using special unidirectional antennas). We have determined that at least part of the problem has to do with the current preponderance of WAPs in the building. Admittedly, this case is quite different in some respects, as the students who set up WAPs may effectively be denying themselves internet access. Our conclusion is either the students need to stop using WAPs in their apartments or we need to change our equipment. We took the latter approach, as it needed to be upgraded anyway.
I don't see why the university we are discussing didn't implement an 802.11a network, thus eliminating most problems. Provide the necessary cards to the students, for free or discount. Yes, you can complain that most students that already have wireless capable machines don't have a-cards, but tough shit. If the sole means of providing the university network to some students is via wireless, then you need to do what it takes to make that wireless work. This includes spending some extra money on higher-end equipment that isn't subject to interference from consumer WAPs and cordless phones, among other things. Either that, or you have to come down and enforce heavy-handed policy. While I don't condone that option, I personally believe they are well within their rights to enforce it.
I also believe that if I found out that my WAP was causing other students to not be able to access the internet at all, I would be obligated on many levels to disable my WAP. I don't see how this could be any more obvious.
What I'm mainly getting at is I hope that this can be a nail in the coffin of proprietary, monolithic data management systems. Frankly, I do not know all that is required with setting up such systems, but if I was in the position to make a decision about it and be responsible for critical data for, say, students at a large university, the last place I would look would be Oracle/PeopleSoft. I have worked with both before, and I am now a client user for both and frankly they suck. I don't know if the trouble lies more on Oracle/PeopleSoft's end of things, or if it just happens to be that every implementation I have ever seen has sucked on its own. Either way, I think that these companies will start to lose significant market share as Windows server products also lose market share, and I think that we should all see that as a good thing.
Anything that kills PeopleSoft is a good thing. I don't care how many people use it or how well it may work for some people, it is the Windows of its market (i.e. poorly made, difficult to support, and unreliable as hell, especially when not configured perfectly).
This has nothing to do with students' rights. No one has a legal right to use however they wish something that does not belong to them. Sure, they may have a right to use a wireless access point in their dorm room, however they do not have a right to connect that to the network without permission. They perhaps may have given up even the right to possess such a device in their room by signing a housing contract, however, so we shouldn't be crying foul. Basically, if you live on a college campus (i.e. property owned by the school) you are completely subject to their rules and regulations.
What exactly is an "extention?" Do you mean "extension?" If you did, why not go ahead and publicly make that correction, because a quick search of the comments for this post reveals that a handful of people are using your poor spelling. Don't tell me it's British either, because it isn't. There is only one way to spell the word in the English language.